Promoting Educational Equality

Lisa Mer, teacher at Central Middle School.

Lisa Mer has been a teacher for more than 20 years. She can currently be found at CENTRAL MIDDLE SCHOOL in Eden Prairie, MN, where she teaches French to 7th and 8th grade students.

Lisa has been through some wrenching personal losses, involving the loss of loss of her partner, and then being denied any contact with the two children who came into her life from that relationship. It was a loss in which marriage inequality played a sizable role, and which left the lives of five family members, and maybe more, deeply affected.

That left Lisa and her family with direct experience with the consequences of inequality and lack of acceptance, although she has found belonging and acceptance in her local faith community, Shir Tikvah. So, it's not surprising that she promotes diversity and acceptance within her classroom.



Lisa Mer promotes SEED SEMINARS within her school and district. These seminars are provided for staff development and are utilized to help educators explore their own experiences within their cultures, as well as increasing their development in their diverse school environments. It is meant to promote acceptance, belonging, and change the perspectives of participants regarding diversity and elimination of oppression.

Then there is also Lisa's work with the NATIONAL URBAN ALLIANCE, another group which partners with school districts and schools, including Central Middle School, to promote equity, social justice, and fairness within the school curriculum. The program has been a major force in the Eden Prairie School District in decreasing the learning gap between students from diverse backgrounds.

All of this fits well into Ms. Mer's philosophy. As she says, "In addition to being a French teacher, I know what I'm also teaching is a movement toward building empathy, a bigger picture of the world, the truth, and taking action. I want students to know they have a voice." These are wonderful attributes to promote and of which to provide a living example, in this increasingly globalized and diversified world. And students have the sense of finding a way to belong in their school community, a common human need, and vital for the well-being of pre-teen and young adolescent students.

Members of the choir at Central Middle School.

Thanks to this article from Pollination Project: https://thepollinationproject.org/grants-awarded/lisa-mer-central-middle-school-eden-prairie-mn/; and this article from TCJewfolk.com: http://tcjewfolk.com/sense-belonging-conversion-story/.

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